Paths Crossed
by piper maru duchovny
Summary: Accidentally-on-purpose happenstance on the campaign trail. - Post season 7 Literati.


**I've been a fan of Literati since junior high but I don't think I've ever wrote anything for them before. Growth! This has been my headcanon for years but I finally got the push to write it thanks to my dear friend, Rachel! **

**Dedicated to Mama Goat for inspiring to me. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable. **

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The bus rolls to a stop in a small New England town; she disembarks to find a hamlet not unlike the one in which she was raised, in fact if she squinted in the midday sun she could almost imagine Taylor on the sidewalk purveying over the citizens as they went about their business. Her stomach is a mess of dancing butterflies and she can't fight the smile on her face because she has been looking forward to this stop since she saw the corresponding date on his website. She's there for work, of course, but they've arrived a day ahead of the conference and that's given her time for exploration and maybe an accidentally-on-purpose happenstance.

She finds the bookstore on the far side of the town square with relative ease and she ducks inside with the last of her courage. The smell that greets her is comforting with its familiarity – books seem to smell the same no matter where they are, all yellowing paper and ink that stains your fingers if you aren't careful. A glance at her watch tells her that she's early, typical Rory, and she takes her time wandering through the stacks.

He's sitting at a card table at the back of the store and she's unsurprised to find a small line that she falls into. His talent has never been something she has doubted but the fact that he has managed to channel it into not just one successful novel but three amazes her. Even though they had a tumultuous relationship, she still follows his career and beams with pride when she stumbles across his written word. She's been one step behind him for his entire tour but she's finally caught up with him in a little town in Rhode Island and she has to admit that she's missed him.

He still looks like he did when he stole her heart at seventeen; he's all cocky confidence that hides his battered soul, his dark hair in total disarray because he can't stop worrying at it with his hands between each customer, and he's still got that crooked grin – the one he used to save specifically for her.

She waits patiently for a half hour as she edges her way forward with the masses. Her mouth goes dry as she tries to think of something terribly witty to say, something to let him know in one sentence that she's missed him and she loves him and, oh god, she's so sorry for their last encounter. Instead, she steps forward and he doesn't glance up as she hands him her worn copy of his first novel. "Who can I make it out to?"

"Rory," she manages. "You can make it out to Rory."

He glances up at her and gives her that grin that still makes her knees turn to jelly before flipping open her book. She watches as he hides his message from her view and smirks when the girls behind her grumble about how long he is taking to write his name on the inside of her book. He drops his sharpie and pushes his jet black hair back from his face as he hands it back to her. "Thank you for coming out, Rory."

"Good to see you, Jess," she whispered. She clutched the book to her chest and moved quickly away from the table, not sprinting out the front door but considering the option. She ducked into the stacks out of his line of sight and crashed to the ground between Aristotle and Kafka as she carefully opened the book to read his words.

_To Rory,_  
_I'll be at the coffeehouse on the corner after the signing is done if you'd like to talk._  
_Would love to talk about your last article and catch up if you have the time._  
_-Dodger_

She worried at her lower lip with her teeth as she closed the book and slid it into her messenger bag. There was no agenda for the night; she was free to do as she pleased until it was time to report for work the next morning, which meant there was no reason for her not to meet an old friend, an old boyfriend, for coffee. With that knowledge, she stood and made her way back to the main walkway to take a look back at the slowly diminishing line. He caught her eye and she gave him a slight nod before turning to disappear out the front door.

The signing was only scheduled to go on for another twenty-minutes so she made her way down the block to the coffeehouse. Inside, she ordered a cup of coffee and found a table toward the back. The teenage baristas behind the counter were blaring some obnoxious pop song over the speakers and so she slid her earbuds in as she waited, thumbing through her library until she found the song she was looking for – an old tune that Jess had been fond of during their dating days. Rory pulled his book from her bag and opened to her favorite passage, beginning to read as she waited for him to show up.

"Hey stranger," he called to her what seemed like just moments later even though she was twenty pages further into her book.

She stood to greet him. "No stranger than you."

His arms come around her middle and she's tucked under his chin like no time has passed between him; their bodies coming together like two puzzle pieces as she snakes her arms around his waist. She pretends not to notice when he drops a kiss to the crown of her head and does little to hide the deep inhale she takes against the crook of the neck. They step back after several long moment and he runs a finger over the line of her jaw before he smiles at her. "You graduated."

"And you wrote two more books," she told him.

"Oh god," he groaned. "You haven't wasted time reading them, have you?"

"Jess," she scolded. "Of course I've read them – thanks for the dedications, by the way."

"You figured it out." He ducked his head sheepishly and ran his hands through his wiry hair.

"Wasn't like it was the Davinci code," she countered. "If I could dedicate my articles, they'd probably mostly be to you – maybe a few to my mom, Lane, and Luke but mostly to you. "

"God," he sighed. "Why?"

"Cause you kicked me in the ass when I needed it the most."

He shook his head. "I just…"

"Yeah," she agreed.

He watches her for a long moment before he speaks again. "How's Logan?"

"He proposed."

"Oh."

"I turned him down, Jess," she tells him softly. "Because I knew that if I told him 'yes' that I wouldn't want to try my wedding dress on every night and I would look back on my life in ten years and spend so much time wondering 'what if'…"

"I'm glad you told him 'no'," he confesses. "Not because of selfish reasons – okay, maybe a little – but because you deserve a chance to be Rory before you go and tie yourself down to some anchor."

"Thank you," she whispers. "Though I don't think you could be an anchor, Jess Mariano – maybe a partner in crime, someone to ride the wind with, but never an anchor."

"Rory…"

"I've missed you, Dodger."

He grins and her heart stops. "Good. "

She kicks his shin.

"I've missed you, too, Rory," he tells her. "No need to be so abusive."

They drink their coffee and she catches him up on the town gossip; how her mom and Luke finally got their act together, how Lane and Zach have managed to keep the band going even with two boys who make their life more hectic than ever, and how Kirk decided to run for selectman in the last election but no one was crazy enough to vote for him so her mom got him a few sympathy votes so it wasn't a total landslide. He tells her about the latest bands he's listened to and how he's thinking about moving again but, then again, he's not home long enough to bother buying another permanent residence somewhere else. Before they're ready, the sun has sunk low in the sky and Rory's stomach grumbles from hunger pains; Jess buys her a cookie and then she's inviting him back to her hotel room for pizza and a really bad movie.

"Where are you off to next," he asks as they walk arm in arm down the street.

"Massachusetts," she explains. "I've got four more conferences and then I'm back in Stars Hollow until it's time to cover the primaries. How about you; where are you off to next, Kerouac?"

"New York," he tells her with a somewhat bitter sigh. "And then I start working my way west; Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, and then I hit LA. I was just going to do the eastern seaboard but the last book took off pretty well and Jimmy's been bitchin' at me to get out to LA again for awhile now."

"When are you done," she asks even though she already knows – she's been following his website ever since it went live.

"Another month," he explains. "My contract is good for another book so once the tour is done I'm off to figure out what the hell I'm going to write next."

"Maybe you should hit the Hollow," she suggests. "See if you can't find some inspiration in your old stomping ground."

"Maybe," he agrees. "For a visit. I'm pretty sure Taylor would make it illegal for me to stay for any real length of time."

"He would try but we all know that my mom and I are the real power behind the town so we could use our wiles to get your clearance."

He laughs. "Somehow I doubt Lorelai would be using the power she has to get my sorry ass clearance."

"You've grown up, Jess," she tells him. "And she has too. Maybe you both need to give each other another shot… For my sake."

"For your sake," he agrees. "I'll call you when I get back from Los Angeles."

"And maybe you could call me from Los Angeles," she suggests. "And Kansas City, Milwaukee, Chicago, and New York."

"I guess that could be arranged."

In her hotel room, the call in an order for several pizzas with the weirdest topping combinations they can create. He warns her that there's no way they will ever be able to eat all that pizza – it's too much for the two of them to possibly consume in one evening – she doesn't care, they're adults and they can over order pizza if they want. He knows better than to argue with her logic.

"We are not watching The Power of Myth," he tells her as he collapses on her bed while she rifles through her goody bag of DVDs that Lorelai left in her P.O. Box the last time she was close enough to check.

"Mom burned every copy I own and I haven't been able to pick up another one," she tells him and chucks a pair of socks from her suitcase at him when he breathes a dramatic sigh of relief. "What do you say to Anna Karenina?"

"A movie adaption of the longest book known to man," he asks. "You're trying to kill me, Gilmore."

"Come on," she pleads. "Jess…"

"Fine," he relents. "You owe me. When we meet up after the tours are over, you're sitting through Outsiders."

"You say that like it's a hardship, Ponyboy."

They settle against the headboard with the pizza boxes sitting at their bended knee as they watch the movie adaption in near silence; Jess makes the occasional sarcastic comment and Rory grumbles at him for acting like such a jerk. By the end of the movie, Rory is asleep against his shoulder and he eases into bed before tucking her in with a kiss to her forehead.

When she wakes in the morning, there is a note propped on her bedside table and all the mess of their night before has been cleaned. She takes the paper in her hand and smile as she reads the words that he left for her; long gone was the monosyllabic boy of her youth and in his place was a man who still made her heart flutter with feelings that had matured over the last seven years.

_Rory,_  
_I know you're probably unhappy with another one of my disappearing acts but I know it's too soon for you to be waking up to my face. I've got an early flight to New York but I look forward to reading your next article - this debate is sure to be a good one. I'll call you this time, I swear._  
_-Dodger_


End file.
